But what anime is bad anime? Well as far as this post goes an anime is bad if you don’t like it, so when I say bad anime I just mean a show you don’t like.
Also I want to thank TimeForWriting11 for this post idea in my comments, while we may disagree on this I want to say that you’re blogs great, I don’t have any ill will towards you and I’m just doing this as I feel like there was more I could have said in my comment response.
If you guys haven’t heard of TimeForWriting11 then I recommend their blog greatly, this post is a good place to start once you’ve finished reading this!
The message of this post is don’t watch anime you don’t like because it’s not fun to do! Why watch something you don’t enjoy? To learn, apparently. You learn a lot of things from watching bad anime’s like what not to do. Which well, isn’t really accurate.
You learn a heck of a lot from watching your first bad show, then as you keep on watching the amount of learning will drop as a lot of shows are bad in the same ways. You could watch a lot of shows you don’t like because the art style sucks or it’s badly animated, however those things are very easy to spot and don’t need a whole series watch to learn.
Honestly that example isn’t great because when people say “learn” they’re more talking about story and characterization than visual things which can be picked up easily. To be honest though the biggest failings of a story which stops enjoyment is that it’s boring. And why is it boring? Because it isn’t good enough at making you care.Following this line of progression you get to two questions: Why didn’t it make me care? And What can be done to make me care? The latter can be learned by switching to a good show and the former has already been learned because you’ve seen the show you already find boring!
The most important question you can ask yourself from a bad anime is why do I want to drop this? And then drop it. There are a million bad anime’s out there so if you’re so interested in learning about why anime is bad it’s much better to watch everything and drop it so that you can keep on learning what failed to make each series hook you.
A huge part of enjoyment is first impressions. It’s rare for you to start a show thinking negatively about it and having it turn positive. So learning from bad first impressions is the best possible thing and then if you really want to learn about that missing 99% from all bad anime you can continue with the promising ones.
Something that I actually encourage is watching anime’s that everyone else loves but you hate. You can learn so much more from what the show does well to cause so many people to like it and you can learn a lot about yourself to explain why it doesn’t work for you. Those are the 1% of bad anime I say you should watch.
There is another response to this about being a completionist, a person who wants to complete every show. I can’t help you cure your OCD however I can argue that your time is better spent watching something you like and I can also say (having a roughly 50% drop to watch ratio) that dropping a show feels good, it means you don’t have to watch it anymore! I can’t argue with “It’s just a thing I like to do” but I will say it looks like a waste of time to me.
Also about completionists, aren’t you terrified to watch really long shows? If you don’t like it you’ll have to trudge yourself through this series. Because of this you might never get to try out great shows with lots of episodes. You’ll never see Lupin III, Hunter X Hunter or space brothers. In fact you’d probably never see anything from trying to finish fairy tail, bleach, one piece and naruto!
Now that this is out of the way I want to bring up a point that not a lot of people who watch anime to learn have considered. It’s the idea that no show is perfect, every show has something that could be improved. So you can learn why you’re good show is good, but you can also learn at the same time what that show does wrong and how it could be improved!
I’m not even into 50/214 dropped shows on MAL and I’m already at 1706 anime episodes that I skipped. That’s a hell of a lot! Granted detective Conan wouldn’t be on the rest of the list but still!
If I had watched all of those episodes it would have taken me ages to get around to learning about space brothers and how to make an adult interview/exam arc so brilliant.
So sure watch bad anime, you have to watch at least a bit to know it’s bad in the first place! But don’t go wasting your time, you’re time is valuable.
My Brain Is Completely Empty 
I don’t get people who spends 3+ episodes on an anime trying see hooks them in.
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Me too, I tend to use an episode at most!
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I watch bad anime all the time but I don’t watch boring anime. I think that’s really the big difference here. Also I’m a crazy masochist as most folks know when it comes to watching stuff. I don’t drop anything. I half-cheat on that I suppose though because I sample shows with an episode or two sometimes and decide it isn’t for me. Usually though, if I start it, I finish it.
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Yeah to me all bad anime are boring, if a show isn’t boring then it’s good in my opinion. Whether that’s so bad that it’s funny or so bad that it’s interesting.
Yeah as long as you enjoy the shows you finish that makes sense, I just don’t want you to waste your time watching something you think is boring!
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Thank you for the Shout-out.
I can see where you’re coming from with this, I only watched the first few episodes of Citrus before dropping it. You can read my blog post about it to know more.
But I think that with Bad Anime is it depends on the type of story you consider bad from the get go. Citrus couldn’t hold my interest for more then a few episodes.
But there have been other shows that are different for exampe SAO and Black Butler II both had a lot of bad writing despite the good animation and strong starts.
Through blogging about them I’ve learned to pin point such mistakes and avoid myself. I found Citrus boring so I didn’t continue but I found watching the train wreck SAO and BBII turned out to be fun enough to keep going.
Yes, you can learn from the flaws of good anime as well but by their nature they commit fewer ones. I think will post my own take this though if you don’t mind.
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No that would be great!
When I mean bad anime I just mean things that are boring and you don’t really want to watch (yet force yourself to complete). There have been shows that I have enjoyed watching despite them being bad and I’m not really talking about those ones.
The main argument for not watching bad anime is that you don’t enjoy it, but if you do enjoy that bad anime then who cares?
About good stories yes you learn fewer flaws but you obviously learn how to do things better and what makes a story good, which is a lot more valuable in my opinion.
I’m feeling like I need to write another post about this mainly because “bad anime” is a bad way to phrase what I’m talking about.
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Yes, perhaps the problem here is the defintion of ‘bad’. I’ll try fleshing that out in my own post, and see where I end up.
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I don’t know if that’s the issue, just replacing bad with boring might be a better idea.
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Maybe, I’ll write my own piece on it and give my two cents
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I look forward to it!
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I would honestly prefer to watch something that is badly done but has an interesting concept or idea than something that is boring me. I’m more likely to drop an average or okay anime than a bad one. There’s something interesting about anime that manage to fail and looking at the how and the why, while sometimes frustrating, gives a lot to think about. of course, watching good anime would be better.
That said, I don’t think of whole genres as bad anime. They certainly might not be to everyone’s tastes but even within the harem genre and similar there are good and bad versions of the same type of story. Or at least better executed versions and lazy pandering.
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I don’t think of all genere’s as bad either, harems were a good example because they’re so similar. One of my top ten anime’s is actually a harem!
To me bad anime is synonymous with boring. If you find any interest at all I don’t consider it bad in the same way.
You could say that garzey’s wing dub is bad, however it becomes so bad that it’s good. In the same way your shows are so bad that they’re interesting. Because of this interest I wouldn’t call them bad.
I think the problem was just the phrasing of the post, I probably should have called it “don’t watch boring anime” and people would have understood a whole lot better,
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Well since I’m doing the Horrible Anime Quest I would have to disagree here đŸ˜› I think it depends a little in what you want to do ahah
For me, watching bad Anime is being fun because I’m watching it with the thoughts of what could I improve to make it better. This, makes watching bad Anime good and you can see it as researching to write a post about it! Nevertheless, as you said I won’t be going on the ones are way too long đŸ˜›
However, if this is not the case then it does not make sense. To learn, I’m with you, instead of going for the bad ones to see “what not to do” go to the good ones and learn “what to do”. Regarding completionist… I’m one of those… But, I’m sorry, if I’m not enjoying an Anime (even if it’s popular) I will just drop it and try another. Let’s face, watching ALL anime is something that you won’t just be able to complete with 100% >.<
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I guess horrible anime quest is a good idea to watch bad shows! You say that you enjoy bad anime thinking about what would make it better. I’m not really talking about anime you enjoy watching, I’m talking about bad anime that you have. If you think this bad anime is fun then watch it because you’re doing something you like! I just think it’s a problem when you watch bad things you don’t enjoy watching.
Yeah “what to do” is so much better.
Yeah I imagined that completionists would have their limits! I have the same mindset as you (“if I’m not enjoying an anime (even if it’s popular) I will just drop it”) however I enjoy a lot less anime and drop half of it! That and I also am prepared to judge an anime as terrible after the first 30 seconds.
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I agree, for the most part, watching bad anime is a waste of your time. But, I also think if done in a group setting it can be a lot of fun. For example, I recently did a group watch of Shinsekai Yori (which I think is a 1/10) and, other than the last 5 episodes, which made me want to die, watching (shitting on) the show with others, and discussing it was a good time. Although, yeah, normally it’s a bad idea.
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Yeah true, watch bad anime if you enjoy it! I’m just saying don’t waste your time doing something you don’t think is fun.
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